


The Nature of My Game

by Peapods



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-14
Updated: 2013-11-14
Packaged: 2018-01-01 14:09:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1044859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peapods/pseuds/Peapods
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Hook really digs the Stones. Emma just wants him to win her a stuffed bear in the ring toss. Maybe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Nature of My Game

**Author's Note:**

> Season 2 AU/Season 3 AUish; Emma throws Hook in jail after the car accident. 
> 
> Features: Gratuitous abuse of Rolling Stones' lyrics.

“ _Thirty eight bottles of rum on the wall, thirty eight bottles of rum, take one down, pass it around, thirty seven bottles of rum on the wall,_ ” Hook sung, voice hoarse after 61 rounds. Emma pointedly ignored him, taking a sip of coffee. She spotted a typo and quickly changed it.

“What _is_ that machine?” Hook asked, staring at her laptop.

“Computer,” she said shortly.

“What’s it do?”

“Computes stuff,” she said helpfully, unable to contained an amused smirk.

“What kind of stuff?” Hook asked, also smirking.

“Work stuff.”

“No pleasure?”

“Well, I don’t trawl for porn when I’m on the clock, but hoo boy, afterward, let me tell you,” she said in a dry tone.

“Porn?”

“I’m not explaining porn to you.”

“That sounds promising.”

She looked up from the screen and shot him a look before looking back down. There weren’t many computers in Storybrooke and the internet connection was generally shoddy, but apparently being sheriff afforded some perks. She wondered, briefly, about setting Hook loose on the internet, but shook the fanciful thought away thinking of all the porn she _wasn’t_ looking at suddenly being in her search history for all and sundry to see. She didn’t want to think what kind of kinks a pirate might have.

“What kind of work are you doing?”

“Sheriff work.”

“What kind of sheriff work?”

“The kind you don’t get to know about.”

After a week of Hook staying in her cells, she was used to the incessant questions. And incessant singing. Hook’s entire presence was incessant and he wasn’t about to let her forget that he was there. She had contemplated working from home or going on an entirely unnecessary patrol--being handled by David because he had even less patience than Emma--but didn’t want to give Hook the satisfaction of knowing he’d driven her away. 

Furthermore, she was curious. Hook hadn’t been overly dazed by the trappings of the 21st century, but Storybrooke wasn’t exactly brimming with the technological delights of the age.

On a whim, she turned up the volume on her computer then turned on her Spotify account. She relished Hook’s jump and shout when “Satisfaction” blasted out of the tiny speakers behind her.

“What the bloody hell?” Hook shouted.

“What? You don’t like the Rolling Stones?”

“What is this noise?”

She feigned shock and horror, “Bite your tongue!”

“I’d rather you did,” he leered as he settled against the bars. But he couldn’t mask his interest in the music. She quickly made up a playlist, happy to have found something suitably distracting that would allow her to get some work done.

She was able to work in peace, the Stones and Flogging Molly and a few other artists she thought might interest Hook, playing on in the background and Hook mercifully quiet.

She should have known it wouldn’t last.

*****

“ _Am I hard enough? Am I rough enough? Am I rich enough? I’m not too blind to seeeeeee_.”

She turned away, ostensibly to get a file, and quietly whimpered. She had created a monster. 

“Hook! Give it a rest!” David yelled when he came in. Hook laughed and started humming “It’s Only Rock and Roll.”

“How was I supposed to know he had an eidetic memory?” She whined, when David shot her an exasperated look.

*****

In Neverland, she had never more wished for a mute button. At night, the cries of the children kept her awake. During the day, the bickering of her travel companions exacerbated the headache that lingered from too little sleep.

On the second night, she lay close to the crackling fire, but still she could hear the cries of the orphans. She sat up with a huff and rubbed futilely at her gritty eyes. The sounds were too much like the orphanages she had stayed in between families. 

“Noise keeping you awake, love?”

“Yeah, how in the hell are they sleeping?” She asked, disgruntled with the easy sleep her David, Mary-Margaret, and Regina had achieved.

“Grew up in quite different circumstances, didn’t they?” Hook asked rhetorically. “Things that go bump in the night come a dime a dozen in our land.”

“Yeah, well, if something was bumping where I came from, it was usually two teenagers screwing in the broom closet,” she said dryly and he snorted. She picked up a stick and poked at the anemic fire. “What’s your excuse? Figured you’d be used to this.”

He smiled, an actual sad smile with none of the innuendo, and shifted off his tree to fold gracefully into a seated position across the fire from her.

“The reason they can’t hear is because they aren’t like us,” he said. “As for getting used to it? You know what it means. You want to help, but there’s nothing you can do.”

She stared at him wide-eyed. This was not cruel Captain Hook, eager for revenge and nursing a massive inferiority complex, never mind the lack of perm. This was Killian Jones, pirate yes, but man as well, obviously nursing a heartache that at least equaled her own.

She looked away from his intense eyes and sighed, “Got any of that rum left?”

“Plenty,” he grinned, tossing it over to her.

She took a swig and tossed it back to him before falling onto her elbows and letting her head drop back.

Killian was humming.

She suppressed the urge to groan because he did have a nice voice, rough and soothing and on-key. She closed her eyes and swept her head back and forth to the tune.

“ _No sweeping exits, or off stage lines, could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind,_ ” he sang softly. Tears pricked her eyes before she drifted off, unaccountably grateful and unavoidably touched.

*****

As she approached the docks, she couldn’t help but laugh. The speakers she’d gifted Killian with after their return were blasting music all across the bay. The pirate himself was, well there was no other word for it, _dancing_ across the deck of his ship, occasionally lifting his hands to air guitar and knocking his hook against anything to drum with the beat. He was missing his coat and his red vest was unbuttoned.

Mid-spin he saw her and, with a large grin, waved her up the gangplank. She laughed and bounded up, taking his good hand as he helped her aboard. He didn’t stop there. He secured her hand and wrapped the other around her waist, careful with the tip of his hook, before beginning to dance around.

Emma, unable to free herself, grasped the back of his shirt and allowed herself to be twirled. They laughed and sang along, stamping their feet.

She’d never felt so happy. She’d never felt so much like she belonged. Storybrooke was populated with characters that she’d grown up with and people who claimed her as one of their own, but she’d always felt like an outsider, an interloper, the only one who knew how the real world worked. With Killian, who hadn’t spent more than a few months in this world, she felt perfectly at ease. He never made her feel that it was imperative she go back to the Enchanted Forest. He never talked about ifs or whens or wouldn’t it be nices. He didn’t remind her that she was a product of True Love or a princess--except when she was being, admittedly, a brat--or even the savior. He liked Hot Pockets and “Nightmare Before Christmas” and he, apparently, really loved the Rolling Stones.

“ _You can’t always get what you want! But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need!_ ” He yelled, more than sang. As the organ started, he dipped her this way and that and turned her around before screaming along with Mick. They danced a while longer before Killian lost whatever wild hair had possessed him. He came to a stop and smiled at her. Emma finally realized that she was grinning like an idiot, tears of mirth and cold wind gathering at the outer corners of her eyes.

“Hi!” she said, out of breath.

“Hello, love,” he said roughly, pulling her close. 

“I guess word of my discussion with Neal got back to you,” she mused.

“Might have heard a rumor,” he prevaricated. He stared her down, and she cursed the heat that rose to her cheeks. “My dear Emma, could it be that for once, I have won something through honest, hard work and perseverance?”

“I’m not a stuffed bear, Killian,” she said dryly, “Though I wouldn’t say no to you winning me one through some kind of manly contest at some point in the future. Like ring-tossing or throwing a softball in a peach basket.”

Killian looked adorably confused and she laughed. “No, seriously, nobody wins. Except possibly me. I win the “Bucking Your Destiny Sweepstakes” by taking up with a pirate and,” she shrugged, “I dunno, hating dresses?”

Killian laughed, throwing his head back. “Oh lass, you most definitely win. But I shall take some satisfaction in your victory for myself, if you don’t mind.”

She bracket his face with her hands, staring into his handsome features. He smiled down at her, the sincerity in his eyes making her heart beat faster. She kissed him then, practically vibrating with the urge to just squeal at a decibel audible only to dogs and jump around like a 7 year old girl who got a Barbie Dreamhouse for Christmas. He seemed to feel it too, involuntarily laughing around their kiss as he lifted her off her feet and spun her around.

“Okay,” she said, breaking the kiss. “That’s only fun in the movies. Oh wow, I might need a bucket.”

He laughed, maneuvering her to the side of the ship as she swallowed down the need to heave. “You’ll need to find your sea-legs again, lass. You did so well before!”

“Yeah, well, before I wasn’t about to vomit from happiness. Nor had I had pancakes for breakfast.” She looked over at his smug grin. “You keep smiling like that you can forget about any kind of shenanigans you hope to get up to.”

Killian laughed, “ _I can’t get no satisfaction, cause I try--_ ”

“Oh, shut up.”


End file.
